Impersonal Energy or Personal God
Turns out, you don't have to choose, you can have both.
A post on Substack this morning has led me to some new insights about God. And God wasn’t even mentioned in the post. So how did that happen?
Well, before I tell you about that, let me explain why I’m posting and it isn’t even Friday yet.
Things Have Changed
I started writing on Substack with the idea that I’d post weekly, on Friday. I thought a once-a-week piece would be about as much as I could commit to. And as much of me as my readers would want.
Then a funny thing happened.
I started getting more ideas about things to write than I could reasonably put out there in a mere one-post-a-week schedule.
And, since I have recently declared my freedom from the cautious, methodical approach I have followed for my entire nearly 70 years, I now think I need to just go with wherever God and my brain are taking me.
If you’re one of my first twenty-ish subscribers, and you were hoping you’d only get one email a week from me, all I can say is Sorry. Things changed. You will now get AT LEAST one email a week.
Ayodeji Triggered Me Today — In a Good Way
As a self-employed/retired/work-from-home writer, I have the luxury of reading in bed for a while every morning if I feel like it. Today, still in bed, I opened Substack to see a post from and Ayodeji. It’s called From $147 in My Account to $1,500,000 Writing Online: My Twisted Path to Building a Full-Time Business.
It was a great story—how Ayodeji went from seriously underachieving to seriously overachieving—with his cup of American ingenuity running all over the place.
There was one line near the end of the article that stopped me in my tracks. I felt like I had to respond. But a quick “loved your article” wasn’t going to cut it here. Instead, as I pondered what I needed to say, I realized the only thing to do was to write my own article in response.
To Ayodeji—
I so much enjoyed the story of your journey. Mine is different, yet many aspects are the same. As is true for many writers, I expect.
One thing you said stuck out to me:
Where attention flows, energy goes.
Surprisingly, I had never heard that saying before. When I looked it up, it seems many thought leaders have taught this, from Tony Robbins to James Redfield to ancient teachers of hatha yoga.
That sentence gave me pause because, in my progressive Christian worldview, I would credit many of your opportunities to God or to your tendency to respond to the promptings of Spirit. But, then again, energy—the highest form of energy—is one of the other ways I think about God.
As I sought to find words for a response to you, I decided to ask God.
At this point, you should know that I practice the spiritual discipline of Listening for Guidance. It’s what the first 6 of my 7 total Substack posts have been about since I started writing here in May (2024).
To summarize the discipline (in case you aren’t familiar): Listening for Guidance is a spiritual practice that involves sitting still, asking Higher Power or Inner Wisdom for guidance in an area of personal concern, and writing down the words that come. It is practiced daily by millions and available to us all.
So now that you’re a little bit caught up, I’d like to share the discussion I had with God this morning (June 25, 2024).
But first, let me just say that right before this, I was thinking about how I would compare and contrast the perspectives of giving credit to “energy” vs giving credit to God.
My Actual Spiritual Journal Entry
Lord,
How should I see the intersection of my existing perception of you with the idea of you as impersonal energy?
To My Daughter Sharon,
Yes, there you discovered it for yourself just now! Energy may describe one aspect of me, but it is not the only aspect of me.
Energy describes my unapproachable side. The side that is more intense than the sun. The side the Jews feared to approach lest they die. [This refers to stories in the Hebrew scriptures aka the Old Testament of the Bible.]
But that viewpoint ignores my approachable side. It ignores the side of me that longs for a personal relationship with my creation… the sort of personal everyday relationship I have with you, Sharon.
Hence, the reason you have been chosen to bear my message. You are already living it.
You are well guided. Guide others to me.
I love you. And all my creation.
God
Before You Freak Out
Before you freak out, notice that this message in no way discredits what Ayodeji had to say. It in no way makes less of his inspiring journey. He was offered opportunities and he stepped up to the plate.
All I want to point out here is these few things:
God is way more than impersonal energy. (But yes, God is also energy.)
As I’ve said before, it’s high time we started being willing to say so in public.
God wants to be in personal relationship with you, and to be recognized by you as the guiding hand in your life.
God is calling you, dear reader, to take advantage of Their [not His…I’m being gender neutral here] invitation to personal relationship. See my Substack section called Listening for Guidance, or any of the resources I mention in those posts, for how to begin.
As for me, don’t shoot; I’m just the messenger.
Enjoyed this post.
You are here. You have been placed exactly here. Choose your path wisely, in communion with HIM.
EVERY choice, you make either takes you further away, closer, or orbiting your Creator. The
Omnipotent Is evident in everything as His energy constitutes everything. He exist, as; not in, and He
defines infinite dimensions. No matter which point of view you take, you can either see or ignore and
try to separate yourself from I AM. Every thought you have is within His vision, freedom, power... no
matter where you are in his infinite space, no matter how good or evil you are, you are within the
bounds of His boundless love. Your Freedom is His ultimate elemental gift of Love. You are free to
choose to bloom or perish, every day.
Hi Sharon,
I loved your lively discussion of the personal vs impersonal (not to be confused with uncaring) aspects of God. I hadn't thought of energy in this way before. The simplicity of attention yielding results belies the complex tasks achieved within this mindset. As a youth I was introduced to the opposite principle "what you resist, persists". I like the balance I experience when I remember both.